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Strategy of Starbucks

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Strategy of Starbucks
1.Introduction

Company
A world phenomenon which started in 1970 from Seattle’s historic pike place market. The name of this phenomenon is inspired from classic novel about whaling industry. Howard Schultz is the man behind this occurrence, that claims 7, 521 company owned, 5,647 licensed stores in 41 countries. SBUX or Starbucks as we all know. Acquisition of 65 Seattle coffee company in 1998 made it possible for Starbucks to enter UK market
Mission statement of Starbucks
“To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.”
To grow SBUX invested in human resources, technology – to give hi-fi and better control of stores which increased in number day by day, stores – minute details which included fixtures and fittings, illumination, location – the principle of “everything matters”. Sales sky rocketed with new outlets being opened. The company ventured out into almost everything from restaurant, coffee shop, music (Starbucks, 2010).
With this cluster spoke and hub model each outlet began to eat flesh of each other which resulted in downward movement of sales. The chart given below depicts revenue growth for the period June 2000 to June 2008. ( Seekingalpha,2010)

However rapid store expansion is not the only cause for this downward trend, let us try to analyze what factors or elements contributed to success and failure of SBUX strategy to grow by rapid expansion

2. The Strategic Triangle
Sustainable Competitive Advantage is the mantra for any business organization in order to operate and be successful in this fierce competitive market. We will be using strategist guru Ohmae’s 3 C’s model. 3 C stands for:
a) Corporate
b) Customer and
c) Competition.
Food and beverage retail chain Starbucks came up with their strategy after analyzing each one of the above element
2.1 Corporate strategy SBUX is basically a company involved in importing; roasting and selling coffee



References: Hammers, M., (2010), starbucks is pleasing employees pouring profits [online], available at http://www.workforce.com/section/benefits-compensation/feature/starbucks-is-pleasing-employees-pouring-profits/ [accessed on 3rd November 2010]. Idealo, (2010), coffee shop review starbucks - café nero and costa-coffee compared [online], available at http://news.idealo.co.uk/news/3603/coffee-shop-review-starbucks-caffe-nero-and-costa-coffee-compared.html [accessed on 3rd November 2010]. Johnson, G., Scholes, K., and Whittington, R. (2006) Exploring Corporate Strategy, 7th edition, London:pearson-books. Prahalad, C.K. and Hamel, G., (1990), The Core Competence of the Corporation, Harvard Business Review. Starbucks,(2010), About starbucks [online], available at : http://starbucks.co.uk/en-GB/_About+Starbucks/Starbucks+in+the+UK.htm [accessed on 24th October 2010] Seekingalpha, (2010), Starbucks revenue growth [online]. Available at : http://seekingalpha.com/article/206270-starbucks-slower-growth-ahead [accessed on 10th november 2010]. Smale,W., (2008), Why Starbucks ' sales have gone cold[online], available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7219458.stm [accessed on 7th November 2010]. Prynn,J., (2009), coffee giant pins hopes on boho redesign for branches in capital [online] available at : http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23748711-coffee-giant-pins-hopes-on-boho-redesign-for-branches-in-capital.do [accessed on 12th November 2010] Wylick, V.,V., (2007), starbucks an example of vertical integration [online] available at : http://www.techiteasy.org/2007/07/28/starbucks-an-example-of-vertical-integration/ [accessed at 22nd November 2010].

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